


Apologies Owed

by BlueGirl22



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: (Jeremy talks about Some Stuff), F/F, Past Sexual Assault, also background meremine, the chole redemption arc we've surely all been waiting for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 07:30:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11481576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueGirl22/pseuds/BlueGirl22
Summary: After accidentally overhearing Jeremy tell someone what the Halloween party was like from his perspective, Chloe thinks back on her actions and realizes that she really owes some people an apology.





	Apologies Owed

Jake was holding a small house warming party/sleepover thing that only consisted of the core friend group that he said was to “try and make the big fancy new house feel lived in,” but most people could guess he just used that wording to mask the fact that he was desperate for company after living alone for so long. Everyone had spent a few hours drinking wine and having increasingly strange conversations in the sitting room, but eventually they all had scattered to the wind. Jenna had to skedaddle home to look after her little brother, Jeremy, Michael, and Christine had gone upstairs to find a room in which to sleep, Chloe and Brooke decided to follow their lead and found a room as well, and Jake and Rich had passed out where they sat in the sitting room.

However, as Chloe lay in the dark about a foot away from a sleeping Brooke, she found herself oddly wakeful. She sat up and saw light shining under the door from the hallway, and decided to get up go to the bathroom. Once in there, she just stared at her own face in the mirror for a few minutes, playing with her hair and poking at her face.

As she walked back down the hallway, she heard talking from behind one of the doors. She was just going to ignore it and keep going, but she heard someone say her name. “You know when Chloe brought me to Jake’s parents’ room at the party?” It sounded like Jeremy. She knelt down and peered through the keyhole, and it indeed was the pale skinny young man. *He sat crossed-legged on the floor, looking a little teary eyed, with Christine and Michael each holding one of his hands.

“It’s okay Jeremy,” said Christine soothingly.

“You can tell us anything, and it looks like you really need to,” added Michael, running a finger over Jeremy’s cheek and drying a tear that had slipped from his eye.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Jeremy took a shaky breath, “It’s just a little hard. Nothing even happened, I don’t know why I’m getting so upset.”

“You’re allowed to feel things. You know how wild my emotions are.” Christine smiled sweetly and kissed his hand.

He swallowed. “Thank you. That, uh, means a lot. So,” even from several feet away and looking through a keyhole, Chloe could tell he was having difficulty with whatever he was trying to say. “She’d said that Brooke was waiting for me upstairs. And I thought, ‘Oh, great, that means getting away from all these people and lights and noise,’ and I didn’t really think about it. When we got up there, she locked the door behind her and told me that Brooke wasn’t coming, which, looking back on it, was pretty obvious.

“I’d, uh, sat down on the bed when we’d come in, and she was making it clear that she wanted to have,” he coughed, “a little more than light conversation, and, like, I wasn’t interested, so I tried to get up, but the Squip, like, turned off my limbs I guess. She straddled and started kissing me, and by then I was shit scared that I wouldn’t be able to stop her, so I told the Squip to make it stop. It replied, ‘I do not understand the request,’ made me drink, made me kiss her again, and then she started trying to take off my clothes.” Jeremy paused and took another breath. He had moved on from being a little misty eyed to a flood of tears running down his face.

“Oh my god, Jeremy, that’s _awful_ ,” said Christine, furrowing her brows and scooting closer to him.

“Did, did she-?” Michael started slowly.

“No, no! Like I said, I’m just fucking overreacting,” said Jeremy quickly, taking his hands back to wipe tears from his face, “It was about then that Brooke and Jake started trying to get in, the Squip shut off from the alcohol, and I got out of there. Nothing happened.” Both Michael and Christine got closer to Jeremy and rapidly started whispering sweet words of validation, and Chloe shakily got up from her kneeling position.

 _Well shit_ , she thought, walking back to her and Brooke’s room. _Well that’s just- shit_. Her mind went back to last Halloween. She had been drinking a lot that night, so it was a little fuzzy, but she had a clear memory of leaning over Jeremy, and him looking absolutely terrified. She has assumed that was just because he’d never been that close to another human being before. If she were sober, she probably would have realized something more was up, but that was beside the point.

“Just say no,” she remembered saying, “All you have to do is say no, and I’ll stop.”

And she’d been puzzled by his his response. He locked eyes with her and just managed to get out, “I _can’t_ say no, Chloe.”

She’d guessed he’d said it like that because he felt guilty about cheating on Brooke and didn’t want to say “yes” outright. She imagined what it would have been like if their positions were swapped. If she had been panicked, pinned underneath him, and physically unable to dissent, she probably would have grasped at straws and gone for that almost-truth, too.  Her memories of that night began to reconfigure in her brain. She had never let herself focus on the actual events before. Over the years, she had found that it was much easier to lie if you made yourself “believe” what you were saying, so she only ever thought of the version she’d made up to get back on Brooke’s good side, the version where Jeremy had brought a not-thinking-clearly Chloe upstairs to make out of his own volition.

 _Wow_ , she thought, laying back down beside Brooke in their room. _That was- I was- that was really fucking shitty of me. Jesus Christ_ . _Brooke’s been nothing but good to me. Always. I only started being nice after the whole Squip thing at the play. How do I make it up to her?_ She looked at her friend’s half-smiling sleeping form, and an idea popped into her head. A not great idea, but it an idea nonetheless. It would be going against exactly the motivations that always made her break up Brooke’s past relationships, so she felt like it would be a good demonstration of how she had changed and how she really was sorry for her actions. _But first I need to fess up_.

* * *

 

Brooke was shaken awake, and stared directly up into Chloe’s bright green eyes. For a second, all she registered was her friend looking pretty a light-blue nightgown, and smiled dopily. Then she took in that a) it was still night, and b) Chloe looked more serious than usual.

“Hey Chlo, what’s up?” she said, sitting up and stretching. “What time is it?”

“Oh it’s like,” Chloe squinted, “I don’t know, like two a.m.? I just needed to tell you something. Remember what I told you about the Halloween party?”

Brooke blinked a few times, suddenly more awake. “Yeah, uh,” _I guess it’s time to bring up this repressed memory_. She spoke slowly as details filtered back into her consciousness. “You said Jeremy brought you up upstairs to have sex, and you were pretty drunk so you agreed, but you only got as far as some pretty heavy making out before Jake punched through the window, right?”

Chloe bit her lip and looked like she was building up courage for something. “Right, that’s what I told you, but, here’s the thing,” she let out a quick nervous laugh, “I lied. About, like, a lot of that.”

“Wh-what? What do you mean?” This conversation just took an unexpected turn.

“All those events kind of happened, but I told them wrong. _I_ told Jeremy that you were waiting for him upstairs, led him to Jake’s parents room, and locked us in there. _I_ tried to get in _his_ pants, which I now know he was more against than I originally thought, but that’s not the point here. The point is I was a jealous asshole who broke up your relationship and your heart, and lied about it afterward because I didn’t want to deal with the repercussions of my actions. And I’m like, really sorry. If I could go back and change it, I would.”

Brooke stared and furrowed her brows. She wasn’t exactly sad, no, she had been sad months ago when she thought yet another boy she liked chose her best friend over her. But now, she was more confused and a touch angry. Her feelings toward Chloe had always been complicated, and this added a whole nother layer of turmoil to the mix. Her mind zeroed in on one word in Chloe’s explanation. _Jealous_. “Why did you do that?” she said slowly.

Chloe opened her mouth then immediately shut it again. She looked like she was thinking. “Look, I know this isn’t perfect, but I have an idea on how I could make it up to you? From now on, if you tell me you like a guy, not only will I back off, but I’ll be your ultimate wingwoman. I’ll sing your praise, make you look good, and if he isn’t hopelessly in love with you by the end of an hour then something will have gone terribly wrong. Okay?”

Her tone and expression were so sincere that Brooke almost didn’t notice that she’d dodged the question completely. Almost. But, then again, Brooke was never any good at holding grudges. Or staying angry for any period of time at all, for that matter. This was something that Chloe had done months ago, after all, and she really seemed sorry. Brooke looked into her pretty, pretty green eyes and felt her complicated emotions stir in her chest.

“Sure,” said Brooke after a moment of tense silence.

“Oh thank god!” Chloe sighed. She had obviously been holding her breath. “Since that whole Squid- Squip- Squib- whatever it was that Rich and Jeremy called it thing at the play, I’ve been trying to put in more effort to be nice, and I hope this doesn’t affect things too much. You’re one of the best people I know.” She paused and laughed awkwardly. “I’m probably gonna regret saying all of that later. I’m really tired and a little tipsy.”

Brooke put her arm on Chloe’s shoulder. “It’s okay.” _Wait, something’s amiss here_. “Hey, what made you bring this up now?”

“Oh, I overheard Jeremy saying something about the party and how it was pretty fucked up for him. And like, that was a lot my fault. I’ll have to say something to him later, too.”

“Good. For now let’s just go to sleep, yeah?”

“That sounds great.”

Chloe flopped down and turned over, but Brooke stayed up for another few minutes. She saw Chloe’s breathing even out in sleep almost instantly, and she let her mind relax. Maybe tomorrow she’d work up the courage to tell Chloe that it might not be a _guy_ for which she’d next need a wingwoman. She lay down slowly, facing Chloe’s back. Hell, with who she had a crush on now, Chloe’s offer could prove completely useless.

* * *

 

The next morning, Jeremy stood in front of the toaster, which was virtually the only thing in the kitchen, waiting for his toast to toast. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. He had eventually been able to get back to sleep, but it was difficult. That nightmare had been jarring, and finally spilling what had happened at the party got him really worked up, but Michael and Christine were experts when it came to calming him down.

He was holding his permanently cold hands over the toaster to try and soak up some heat, when he was startled by the sound of the kitchen door opening behind him. He thought he was the only one awake. Faster than light, he spun around and was faced with Chloe, leaning calmly against the door on the other end of the room.

“Oh, uh, hey,” he sputtered, “I think there’s some, uh, cereal in the cabinet next to you, if you’re looking for breakfast, which you probably are, I don’t know why I said ‘if.’ Sorry, I’m a little frazzled, didn’t sleep much-”

“Hey, you can stop.”

“Thank you.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a second. “That was getting a little out of hand.”

“Actually, I came down here to talk to you.” She made eye contact, and Jeremy got the idea that it was something important.

“Okay.”

“So, I was walking around last night, and I kinda accidentally overheard you talking to Christine and Michael.”

Adrenaline flooded through his system. His palms got sweaty. His heart raced. His fight-or-flight mechanism had been triggered and was loudly screeching _flight flight flight flight!_ “You _what_?”

“I heard you talking about Halloween. And I felt like I should apologize.”

“No no no no no,” he nearly tripped over his words, “You don’t need to do that, it wasn’t your fault, you didn’t know.”

“But still like,” she took a second to stare into space, and Jeremy assumed she was looking for the right words, “I shouldn’t have tried to get with you without getting a ‘yes’ first. And you were dating Brooke, so double douchiness on my part. I’m sorry.”

He still felt a little like he was being ambushed, but what she had to say wasn’t as painful as he thought it would be. Actually, hearing her say that felt really nice. He felt his pulse slowing and breathed a little more deeply. “Thank you. That means a lot.”

She smiled. “Of course. Honestly, I should have done this earlier, but I couldn’t exactly hear what you said last night and do _nothing_ . Have you considered therapy? You were crying _a lot_.”

Jeremy just knew that he was red as a beetroot. “That- that’s a little personal, you’re overstepping the line there just a little.”

“Oh, okay, I’ll back off.” She nodded and bit her lip.

“And, if you must know,” he stared down at his fingers, “I’m already seeing a therapist, and she says I’m allowed to cry, so…” he trailed off.

“Oh, good,” she said quickly, ducking back out the door.

Jeremy stood alone in silence for a minute, simultaneously a little mortified and a little euphoric at that whole interaction. Then the toaster popped and he nearly had a heart attack.

**Author's Note:**

> *What’s going on with Jeremy? Good question. He just had a Bad nightmare and Michael and Christine are trying to comfort him by coaxing what it was about out of him. He doesn’t share things easily. If/when I get around to writing a longer meremine thing, the other side of this part will probably feature.
> 
> heyyyyyyyyy hmu on tumblr @bisexual-evanhansen, talk to me :)))))))))))))))))))))


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